Drums and Confections
by Yotsubadancesintherain5
Summary: What should have been a fun festival becomes a maze of worry.


The crowd was a sea, tough to navigate through, pushing against them. Luigi managed to find a gap in the crowd and took it before he turned around for a brief moment.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine!" Daisy said as she squeezed past. She took his hand when he offered it.

There was a way out of the crowd and he pulled through; the sudden momentum made Daisy fall face first against his back.

"Ow," Daisy said, before brushing down the fabric of Luigi's yukata. "Soft!"

"Sorry!"

"It's okay." She breathed in through her nose to prove it. "Oh, something smells good!"

Luigi breathed in through his nose, trying to figure out where the smell was coming from.

"Ah, over there!" He said, pointing to a booth three ways down. They worked to it and found the source. It was cubes of grilled meat on sticks. Luigi bought a plateful and moved out of the way of the other customers.

When there was a space to stand without being in the way he presented the plate to Daisy.

"Here, you can have one first."

"Oh, thank you!" She took a skewer and bit into a cube of meat. "Hey, it's burnt!"

"Really?" He took one, bit into it and tasted the mixture of ash and cooked meat. "You're right. But it's still good right?"

"Yep!" She bit off another cube and looked around.

"So, what should we do now?" She asked when she finished the second cube.

"Make plans for the fireworks," Luigi replied. He pointed at some stairs in the distance. "You see those stairs over there? There're usually red lanterns over stairs but that one has pink lanterns. It's the best place to see the fireworks."

"Got it!" Daisy ate the third and final cube. "I want to see the fireworks with you!"

"I want to see them with you, too."

They finished the small meal and Luigi tossed the garbage into a nearby trash can.

"Want to walk around until the fireworks start?"

"Sure!" she replied.

They re-entered the crowd, hand in hand, but after a few moments the surge of the crowd forced them to let go.

"You can see me?" Luigi called over the crowd's growing loudness.

"Yep!"

Relieved, he pushed through the crowd for a long while. At last, there was a way out and he found a game booth.

"Oh, catching the balloons floating in water," he said as he turned around, "I wasn't any good-"

Daisy wasn't there.

Luigi looked over the crowd, trying to spot a sunset patterned yukata but nothing like that crossed his vision.

"Daisy," he called, but there was no answer. The crowd was too loud.

Dread rose up along with a command to not panic. He looked over the crowd again and still didn't see her.

"What to do, what to do?" he wondered aloud. He called out, "Daisy!" again just to be sure.

When there was no answer Luigi began to form a plan; to wait until the festival was over so that they could easily find each other. It was a terrible plan so he discarded it.

The next was to retrace his steps. That seemed like a good one, so Luigi followed the flow of the crowd. But after a while all the booths ended up looking the same.

"So, go through all the rows," he improvised. He squeezed to the outskirts of the festival on the left side and began his search at the top row. By halfway of this first row he realized it was just a bad idea as his first plan.

"And what if she's looking for me, too?" Luigi asked himself. "We'll never be able to find each other if we keep moving around. So should I stay still?"

Another worry rose up. "But what if she's staying still too?"

"Then maybe she went home? Should I go home, too? No, no." Luigi knelt down, the pit of his stomach rolling and making him feel nauseous, and he put his face in his hands.

"She wanted to see the fireworks together…"

He looked up. "The fireworks…"

Luigi got up and ran. He only stopped when he reached one of the stairs and looked out to see the lanterns. He saw the pink lanterns further down and he ran again, his sandals clacking loudly against the stone.

Finally, the pink lanterns were in plain sight and he saw Daisy sitting on the steps, a giant cup of shaved ice in her hands. All of his worry dissipated in an exhale.

"Daisy!" Luigi called and she looked up.

"_There_ you are!" she said as he climbed the stairs.

He settled down beside her, suddenly feeling exhausted.

"Here, try some," Daisy said, passing the cup into his hands. The shaved ice was a mixture of all the flavors, with red beans and condensed milk.

Luigi took a spoonful of shaved ice and ate it; when the ice melted on his tongue the first firework went off. He looked up in surprise as another firework went off.

Daisy pushed herself close to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. He brought the cup closer to her level and they shared the treat as the fireworks went off above them.

**A/N: Originally posted on AO3 on August 20 2018**

**This is a particular story idea that I had been chewing over for about two years. Just trying to work out how it would work, feeling like something just wasn't right with it, and ultimately letting the gristle of an idea go into the recesses of discarded inspiration...**

**And then I go on my long trip to Japan, have this idea cross my mind, change one little detail and suddenly the whole thing clicks into place. Go figure.**


End file.
